USM defense trying to move on

The Southern Miss football players and coaches wrapped up Tuesday’s practice still trying to put Saturday’s 50-43 loss to Houston behind them.

Southern Miss defensive coordinator Todd Bradford said he had gone out of his way putting in work this week to ensure the defensive breakdown the Eagles suffered against Houston doesn’t happen again.

“We’ve spent a little bit of extra time going over last weekend’s film,” Bradford said. “We had a chance at the end, and we just didn’t hold up our end in the last nine minutes. We’re working to get it corrected so that the next time our defense gets put in a position to win a game for us, we will do it.”

Bradford also talked about the crossing routes Houston’s receivers ran that killed them Saturday.

“It’s a play our offense has run against our guys in practice probably 250 times. As a matter of fact I think that was the first play we ran in the spring. I promise you this, we’ll be ready for that from now on.”

“I think it’s the hardest we’ve taken a loss since I’ve been here,” he said. “You could tell by the body language Sunday and yesterday, but today I think we’ve put it in the rear view mirror.”

Southern Miss head coach Larry Fedora confirmed both Anthony Gray and C.J. Bailey are going to be able to bounce back from injuries suffered Saturday.

Bailey was hit in the groin on an early play, and had an eye contact pop out in the third quarter and had to sit out.

Gray went down on his final play of the first half, when he fell backwards on an opposing player’s ankle, cracking two ribs.

“It hurt (when it happened), and made it hard to breathe,” Gray said Tuesday. “But I’m fine, I’ll have to wear one of those flak jackets, but it won’t keep me out against Marshall.”

Bailey said it took him until the morning before to get the Houston game out of his mind.

“I mean, that game isn’t something I could just sleep off overnight,” Bailey said. “I know now that I’ve got to get past it and start concentrating on Marshall.”

Southern Miss safety Jamie Collins said he felt he and his teammates were just out of position on a couple of key plays.

“You have to give them credit,” Thornton said. “We had some missed assignments and some missed tackles and they took advantage of that. This week is about getting our swagger back.

I didn’t play against Marshall last year, but there are a lot of guys here did and we have to help them pay them back for that loss.”

The team will work out in the weight room Thursday and Friday before taking Saturday off.